And... we're live! Dusk Network launches testnet DayBreak
Intent on solving privacy concerns for tomorrow’s financial landscape, the privacy-preserving layer-1 blockchain enables businesses and consumers to reap the benefits of a public network for an array of financial applications compliant with legal requirements
You’ve waited long enough._ Dusk Network_, the Amsterdam-based FinTech
company, successfully launched its testnet called DayBreak today;
allowing you, our Dusk community members, and the wider blockchain
community, to interact with the network for the first time. With the
launch of DayBreak, the public can interact with the network for the
first time.
Dusk Network is a layer-1 blockchain protocol capable of powering
privacy-preserving smart contracts that satisfy business compliance
criteria. The network is secured by a novel and fast Proof-of-Stake
(PoS) consensus with settlement finality guarantees, an important
requirement for financial use cases. This opens up new opportunities for
communities and organizations who are looking to embrace blockchain for
their business and use it to address the inefficiencies of traditional
finance.
Compliance and a real-world solution
Traditional financial institutions, such as banks or brokers, are
keeping a watchful eye on the rapid developments in the blockchain
industry. Blockchain has the potential to disrupt the status quo, but
only if it can comply with the financial market directives and
legislation.
Carving its own path, Dusk Network was designed and built from the
ground up to satisfy the requirements of a regulatory compliant
distributed ledger. The team pushed the boundaries of the current
technology by researching and delivering novel techniques and algorithms
in the realm of peer-to-peer networking, distributed computation, and
zero-knowledge cryptography. By tailoring its network specifically to
the requirements of the financial sector, Dusk Network aims to make
blockchain relevant in promising sectors currently largely untapped.
”Most of us know that public blockchains are completely transparent by
nature. This presents a real blocker for large financial institutions
looking to adopt the technology. They need the tools to satisfy
compliance criteria, whilst keeping sensitive data, such as their
clients’ balances, ownership registries, and asset movements between
venues, confidential. I am beyond excited to launch DayBreak knowing
that we are pushing technology that addresses the needs of the real
world.”_ - says Jelle Pol, Founder & Business Director at Dusk Network.
Technological breakthroughs
By utilizing PLONK, the lightning-fast standard in zero-knowledge (ZK)
technologies, all transactions on Dusk Network benefit from
confidentiality. The network acts as a public record with smart
contracts that store relevant information in a confidential fashion,
thus solving the shortcomings of similar platforms, such as Ethereum,
which are incapable of fulfilling the privacy-compliance requirement.
Succinct Attestation is a unique Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus
mechanism __that delivers much-needed settlement finality. This is
essential for regulatory compliance in financial applications. On Dusk
Network, completed transactions are final and irreversible as soon as
they are processed, providing legal certainty of ownership. In addition,
PoS is more environmentally friendly than Proof-of-Work, as it doesn’t
rely on the power-intensive computation of mining.
The Confidential Smart Contract platform RUSK opens up development
of a new breed of powerful decentralized applications (dApps) and
enables anyone to program privacy-enabled smart contracts. This sets
Dusk Network aside from existing privacy blockchains such as Monero and
Zcash, which can only cater private transactions due to the lack of
smart contract functionality.
These three technological innovations allow for privacy, instant
settlement finality, and smart contract functionalities, making it
possible to service regulatory-compliant financial applications on
blockchain technology.
“TestNet is a huge milestone and I am incredibly proud of launching a
network that fulfills a vision that many considered too ambitious even
for multi-billion dollar projects With Dusk Network we are creating a
state-of-the-art blockchain in every sense of the word; the components
underpinning the network such as PLONK, Kadcast, and Rusk are true
marvels of innovation that pave the way for a new standard in both
traditional finance as well as the emerging DeFi. With the delivery of
DayBreak, we are entering an exciting new chapter which signals our
confidence in the network’s capabilities, as well as our readiness to
progress to the next steps featured in our roadmap, toward our vision of
a truly fair and efficient financial market.” - says Emanuele
Francioni, Founder and Technical Director at Dusk Network.
Testnet DayBreak & beyond
With its launch, the network is now open for public scrutiny. Users can
visit the Block Explorer to inspect the network’s block times, and learn
more about the ongoing activities. Those who are looking to contribute
can apply for the waiting list, which is currently boasting over 2500
sign-ups. Tech-savvy users can install the CLI wallet from the Portal
and start executing transactions on the network.
After the launch of our testnet, we remain committed to improving the
network and incorporating the feedback we receive from the community and
through extensive testing of its many components in a real-world
environment. This is why we’ll be instituting release cycles as we move
forward; to continuously deliver upgrades of all Dusk ecosystem
libraries and components with a stream of releases publicly shared on
our Github repositories. The upgrades will be then pushed on DayBreak
along with the overall feature progression and stability enhancement, so
to deliver constant and tangible improvements for every user trying out
the network Stay tuned for these reports as they’re released!
We’d like to thank you all for your patience, and introduce you to
DayBreak, our most significant milestone yet.